


can't stand me now

by scenedenial



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, Prostitution, Sexual Content, Unrequited Love, my own private idaho au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28986471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scenedenial/pseuds/scenedenial
Summary: Noel would follow Cody across the world.
Relationships: Cody Ko/Noel Miller
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	can't stand me now

**Author's Note:**

> this is based on the movie My Own Private Idaho but you don't need to have seen it to understand this 
> 
> as always, these are just characters based on Cody and Noel's public personas - this is fiction !!

Cody orders a steaming plate of chow mein that arrives to the table in a chipped fake-china serving tray, and a pot of coffee with cream and sugar. And if Noel thinks that’s a gross combination, well, he keeps it to himself. 

The cafe is decorated all in red. The leather of the booths is cracked and scarred and dusty fake plants hang from the ceiling. It’s a shithole. And five times out of ten, the food makes one of them sick. But its the only place left in Portland where you can still get a cup of coffee with refills and the works for two quarters, so they keep coming back. 

They always sit at the table in the corner. Noel puts his feet up. Cody’s jacket is open over his bare chest and stomach. _Douche._ It’s raining outside. 

“I’m thinking about going to Seattle this weekend.” Cody says, sipping his coffee. Noel wants to lay down in a bed he doesn’t have and sleep. 

“Why Seattle?” 

“This guy I met at Pussycat’s last week said he’d pay to fix my bike if I went up to see him.”

“Is he cool?” Noel asks. It’s cold.

Cody snorts. “I think so. I dunno.”

Noel’s nostrils itch. 

“Do you have coke?” 

“You want a soda?” Cody’s mouth quirks up at the corners.

“C’mon.”

“Yeah, I have coke. From the bike guy, actually.” 

Noel is comfortable in dirty bathrooms under fluorescent lights, like one of those freaky fucking sea creatures that’s been underwater long enough that its eyes have disappeared. Cody lines up the blow beneath the mirror while Noel stares at his reflection and tries to wipe the darkness away from under his eyes.

“You tired?” Cody asks. His undone tie is hanging long off one of his shoulders. Noel fights the impulse to reach out and fix it for him. 

“Yeah.” 

“Here,” Cody puts a hand on the back of Noel’s neck, guides him face-first to the neat lines standing out pure against streaked metal, “wake up.” 

Noel snorts, wipes his bloody nose on the back of his hand after. 

Cody laughs at him, his palm still cupping Noel’s neck. 

—

They call it the hotel but its more like an orphanage, stuffed to the gills with skinny, dirty street boys and liquor bottles and cigarette butts. 

Noel lays down in Cody’s bed still wearing his coat and boots and listens to someone tricking in the next room until sleep takes him under. 

“Wake up,” Cody murmurs into Noel’s neck. “Let’s go out.” The sun has set outside the hotel. Noel is tangled in the sheets, the back of his neck sweating in his jacket collar. Cody is laying on his side, drawing his fingers over the side of Noel’s face. 

“No,” Noel closes his eyes for the millionth time today, “I wanna sleep.”

“Are you sick?” Cody asks. “It's Friday night.”

“No. I don’t know.” 

“Then get up. We need money.” 

“ _I_ need money.” 

Cody’s parents have enough cash to drown him in. He’s out in the streets of his own volition, some boy-scout adventure that Noel is only sometimes bitter about. Cody’s parents have money coming out of their ears but Cody’s jeans are ripped through the ass. Noel knows he thinks it makes him look cool, streetwise. Noel knows that if it ever gets really bad Cody can go home. Noel doesn’t have the option.

“Yeah, you do.” Cody smiles, missing the vitriol in Noel’s voice by choice or by ignorance, and shakes his shoulder. “So get dressed.” 

Noel does. 

—

Cody lights Noel’s cigarette outside the club on Broadway, standing inside the circle of light that burns off the butt moments longer than he needs to. Noel blows smoke into his face, longing for the tug of Cody’s hands around his wrists. He won’t ask for it. He doesn’t. 

“Hey, kid,” An old-man voice behind them says. 

Cody turns, snaps into it right away. Noel can see him batting his lashes. 

“Me or him?” Noel hates Cody’s tricking drawl. Saccharine and fake. 

“Him. The Asian.” 

Noel sucks his teeth. Shoots Cody a look as he gets into the slimy guy’s slimy car. Cody waves back at him. 

Noel makes thirty bucks off sucking the guy’s dick, which isn’t bad. Not great, not bad. It’s clean, anyways, and the dude doesn’t say much. The chatty ones are the worst. 

Cody picks him up afterwards on the street corner in someone else’s car. 

“Where’s the bike?”

“Told ya. Gotta get the guy in Seattle to fix it.”

Noel doesn’t bother asking how Cody plans to make it up there with a broken motorcycle. He looks out the window into the clear night sky. 

“Make anything tonight?” 

“Twenty for a couple of handjobs in the bathroom at Pussycat.” 

Not that Noel would admit it, but there’s a kind of quiet pride in making more, tricking _better_ than Cody. Especially because Cody’s not even gay. Because. 

“Wanna go home?” Cody asks. 

“Yeah.” 

—

They have sex in Cody’s creaky bed. Cody kisses Noel’s collarbone red and Noel begs himself not to let it mean more than it does. 

Cody isn’t gay and Noel is a wet mouth. Noel is easy. Noel is available. Always. 

—

Noel ends up in Seattle with Cody. Because of course he does. Because he’d follow Cody anywhere. 

They hitchhike most of the way with a young redheaded woman who can’t take her eyes off Cody long enough to glance at the road. Noel can’t say he blames her.

Noel is wearing a busted-up orange leather jacket and threadbare white jeans. Cody still has a fucking tie on, loose around his neck. Noel smokes and picks at his cuticles.

“So what’s in Seattle?” The girl asks, her long nails tapping on the steering wheel.

“We’re visiting a family friend.” Cody says.

“Are you guys brothers?” She asks, and Noel snorts in the backseat because Cody is white as paper. 

“Yeah,” Cody says, and he turns back to Noel, eyes glittering, “yeah, we are.” 

Noel looks out the window into the wet bracket of Washington forest. Fuck.

—

Cody’s bike guy is named John, or Jack, or something. He’s more handsome than Noel had imagined him being; there’s a sharp flash of jealousy in his stomach.

John, or Jack, or whatever, ushers them into his apartment, brings them beers while they sit on his stiff couch. 

“Cody didn’t mention a friend,” the guy says, looking at Noel in a way that makes him want to bare his teeth.

“This is Noel,” Cody says, “we do everything together.” There’s laughter. 

“Well, boys,” Jack or John says, exhaling. 

—

They leave with $400 between the two of them. It’s more money than Noel has ever held in his hands. He can see the prideful, rich-boy glint in Cody’s eyes. 

“Dunno why everyone doesn’t do this. It’s such a fucking racket.” Cody laughs as they wait in the dark terminal for the last bus back to Portland. 

“Lotsa guys don’t wanna suck cock.” Noel says. 

Cody turns.

“I don’t _want to_ suck cock, asshole. It’s for the money.” 

“Yeah.” Noel rubs his sore jaw. 

“I’m not gay.” 

“Yeah.” Noel repeats. _Yeah, okay, I get it._

He could say _you suck my cock and I don’t pay you_ but he doesn’t. 

Yeah.

—

Back in Cody’s bed, back in the hotel, Noel lets his hands wander. There’s a bottle of tequila on the floor, three-quarters empty. 

“What’re you doing?” Cody drawls. His pants are unbuttoned and loose at his hips. Noel’s fingers slip under the waistband of his own boxers. Cody’s pubes are soft and visible, putting a lump in Noel’s throat.

“Jerking off.” Noel answers.

“Fag.” Cody says, but then they’re kissing and Cody’s hand comes down and closes over Noel’s own. 

“I love you.” Noel murmurs as Cody’s fingers wrap the base of his cock.

“Don’t say that, man.” Cody whispers into the side of Noel’s flushed neck.

“I do.” Noel’s hips buck up unconsciously.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Cody tugs on Noel’s cock and warmth floods his stomach. 

“You’re such an asshole.” Noel squeezes his eyes shut. 

“I know. I know I am.” Cody sounds sadder than Noel has ever heard him.

—

They end up back in the diner. Just like always. Noel orders egg Benedict and watches Cody empty sugar packets into his coffee. 

“Do you wanna go to Idaho with me tomorrow?” Cody asks. Noel’s feet are cold in his boots.

“Sure.” Noel doesn’t ask why. Noel would follow Cody across the world. 

Yeah.


End file.
